“Well,” Allie said, dissecting a split end between her thumb and forefinger, “we don’t have much of a choice, right? My dad has a game playing in the house at all times, from September to the Super Bowl. I’d have to literally plug my ears and blindfold myself to ignore it.”
As the game meandered on, Madison did a quick mental scan of her tote’s contents. English class this year wasn’t much, but she couldn’t wait for next year, to finally get to reread The Great Gatsby, something with actual humans feeling actual emotions and falling in love and with many opulent party scenes. She’d read the whole thing a few years ago, in middle school, but she remembered those party scenes most of all. The way the book caught how it felt in real life, when everything swirled past in the air above your head. The lights and the sound of breaking glass.
But sophomore English was, all signs indicated, going to be the same sort of hit parade English class had been every year so far, with Beowulf, The Picture of Dorian Gray, even, she had a feeling, with The Scarlet Letter next semester. A series of chances for a series of male writers to cram their ideas of what it meant to be a man down her throat. And if she wanted that, she’d just linger outside the door to her father’s study the next time he shut himself up with some of his partners. Periodically paging her on the intercom to ask her to bring them drinks, his praise more lavish with each round. Mad, you there? The natives are growing restless. Be a princess and bring us a tray of drinks. You know what we need, all the fixings. The boys’ll be indebted to you, sweetheart.
She shivered, then admonished herself for feeling guilty. She had thoughts like this all the time; didn’t everyone do this, complain about their parents in the privacy of their own minds? Mocking her father this way usually felt gentle, harmless and inaudible, an appropriate counterweight to the rest of her life as a daddy’s girl. And yet this particular moment of disrespect sat heavily at the base of her spine.
She pulled her cashmere hoodie more tightly around herself and peered over her shoulder at the other spectators. The fathers were all standing off to one side, clumped beside the bleachers; the mothers all sat on the higher levels, their backs straight, leaning forward with their hands cupped around their crossed knees. They all wore muted versions of the things their daughters wore—quilted jackets, velvet flats, gemstones sparkling at their ears whenever they brushed back a strand of hair. Several of them were staring down at her.
At halftime, the players gathered in a huddle not far from the bleachers, then scattered out across the field, some throwing a ball back and forth, others stretching on the sidelines. They all seemed determined to scowl.
“Chip is looking over here,” Zo? said without inflection. Madison felt the moisture drain from her mouth. Moments later he was walking past the bleachers, cutting his eyes up at them.
“This the cheerleading squad?” he said, his voice rumbling from some place deep in his chest. When he spoke, it was like something warm had been poured down your back, from your neck to your tailbone.
“We just thought you could use the support,” Zo? said, not looking at him.
“What about you,” Chip said. “Madison. This your first football game?”
She nodded, voiceless.
“It’s a rough one,” he said.
She shrugged, and figured out something to say. “It’s just the preseason.”
“Yeah, we’re hanging in.”
“Really?” she said. “I heard you were running circles around their defense.”
He grinned and looked back over his shoulder, wiping his mouth on his jersey, before turning his head back to her and looking her right in the eye. She felt something unfold in her chest, as delicate and expansive as a ship in a bottle. She sat up straighter.
“Well, you know,” he said.
“Madison,” a loud voice boomed, just beyond Chip, who looked back and then moved aside. Through the metal bars, she could see a man beaming up at her. “Madison D’Amico, how are you?”
A tuxedo, she thought. He’d been wearing a tuxedo—where? Had she met him at MoMA, maybe, one of her mother’s events? His voice, like a stick dragged over gravel, made louder by the glass of vodka in his hand. Her father, catching her eye, raising his eyebrows and then letting a look slip toward the man as if he were emitting an unpleasant smell. Her hand over her mouth, hiding her own smile. The smell of her mother’s makeup, which she’d been allowed to borrow, the waxy feel of the lipstick. The unpleasant static of her tights as they snagged on the tulle skirt of her dress. Years ago, at least—she’d been littler, then, an accessory for her parents’ evening.
She could not, though, remember his name. Or who his children were, although his presence seemed to suggest that they must be somewhere at her school.
“Hi!” she said, her voice all manufactured brightness. “So nice to see you again. How are you?”
“Well, kid,” he said, wrapping his fingers around the metal bars between them. She was sitting on a lower bleacher, so that his eyes were nearly level with hers. “I just came over to ask you the same question. How you doing? You holding up?”
Madison could feel the girls on the bench beside her, their presences settling, heavy with their efforts not to eavesdrop. The curiosity sinking to their feet like lead, holding them still. Beyond them, she knew, if she turned her head to look out over the rest of the bleachers, the mothers would be doing the same thing. Everyone would continue to speak, but their bodies would orient toward her. Somewhere, she thought with panic, Wyatt Welsh’s mom is here. Suzanne Welsh, the most frantic gossip of all the mothers she’d known since childhood, was somewhere in the stands.
She smiled again, as if the man had just told her some wonderful news.
“Oh, I’m doing so well,” she said. “They didn’t warn us about all the work we’d have in tenth grade! But, I mean, otherwise I can’t complain. What brings you to the game?”